CONTAINS CONTENT:
Action and torture
There was pandemonium for a minute as several more people arrived on the scene, including Barbara and Liam. Vincent had fallen to his knees but was still alert, although a fresh cut trickled blood down the side of his handsome face.
Austin rushed in between everyone and bent down to Marielle, taking hold of her face and tilting it toward him. “Hey. Hey, can you hear me?” he asked.
“Au-Austin?” she finally got out, but her tongue felt thick and uncooperative. That was when she registered the searing pain in her palms again. She gritted her teeth and groaned, the pain coming back twofold.
Austin hugged her close for a moment, and as he did, he ran his hands down her arms—deliberately?—to her palms and interlocked their fingers. This seemed odd at first, but then Marielle realized what he was doing. A chill passed into her palms, and she went from crying to whimpering and sucking air in through her teeth in relief.
“Hey, now… People will get the wrong idea,” he quipped, throwing a pointed glance that also hid a smirk at Vincent, who was glaring at him. “Can we get a healer here?”
“Already on the way,” someone said from the crowd.
They re-cuffed Vincent, keeping their weapons trained on him.
“I hope you enjoyed that little charade, Mr. Fabron,” Barbara said, “because now I demand answers—answers you obviously have.”
“Now we’re going to try things another way,” Liam added.
Vincent glowered at Barbara, unblinking, then looked briefly to Marielle and back.
Marielle gasped, jumping up. “No!”
“Marielle, it’s okay,” Vincent assured calmly. The smash to the face had tossed his hair into his eyes, and he flicked it back.
Marielle clawed for him, but Austin pulled her back against him. “That’s not going to help him right now,” he said, putting both arms around her like a giant hug.
She kept wrestling to get free. “They’re going to torture him! Let me go, Austin!”
“Stop,” he whispered into her ear, icy breath chilling her. She paused, heaving. “We’ll work it out.”
Something in Austin’s tone reassured her, and she calmed. She crumpled a bit in defeat, her knees weakening. He backed off enough to let her cry for a moment as the others marched Vincent away.
Nearby, Jamie knelt next to his double’s body in stunned silence while Klara leaned cautiously over her own. She turned the corpse over onto its back. Something—the last bit of life, perhaps—still flickered in its eyes.
“Mein Gott,” she breathed, backing away, wrist drawn over her nose in terror. When she turned, Tayane took her into her arms tenderly and hushed her.
***
Marielle pleaded to deaf ears as she ran after Barbara, who was at the end of the procession taking Vincent deep within the bowels of the facility to be interrogated. Austin was right behind her, and as they moved, Wei Ling came in from the right and joined them, her eyes instantly wandering to Sasha. Everyone except Sasha knew that she had been in love with him for years, but she wasn’t brave enough to test it in any way.
Wei Ling was one of Valorant’s best kept secrets. Her agent name was Sage, and she possessed a rare ability. While a number of other radiants had gained the ability to heal, Wei Ling’s ultimate ability resurrected someone from the dead. This only worked within a minute or two of death, and something—brain activity or a spark of life—still had to exist within the person for it to work, but it was useful. The catch was that Wei Ling had to take life from somewhere in order to give it. No one except Sabine had been brave enough to ask where she took it from, and Sabine had never revealed Wei Ling’s answer. Among her other abilities, she could also create a wall that divided a space between friend and foe, as well as heal herself and others.
“Please heal her,” Austin said, nodding to Marielle.
Wei Ling took Marielle’s hand, and instantly a calm energy poured through her body, draining Wei Ling a little as she removed all the burns and bruises.
Marielle stopped and lifted her hands, which were now whole again. “Thank you.”
Wei Ling nodded and kept walking with the others. None of this comforted Marielle; she knew why Wei Ling was there. Fear gripped her stomach, tying it in knots.
After a deep breath, Marielle steeled herself and pushed forward. Austin remained with her the whole way as she followed Vincent and his captors down the stairwell, past Cellblock Four, to a room at the end of the hall with a bulletproof observation window.
Vincent was shoved inside, followed by Wei Ling, Erik, Barbara, Liam, and Sasha. They stripped him of his vest and shirt while Erik closed the door in Marielle and Austin’s faces. His hardened expression was clear: Watch through the window if you’re that interested in seeing him destroyed.
Since this was the first time Marielle had seen Vincent’s body under his clothing, she immediately noted that the tattoos covered his entire back and seemed to continue beneath his pants, presumably all the way down his legs. The second thing she noted was that while he was thin, he was also muscular, especially his upper half. His shoulders were wide, and his body was well-defined.
“Wow,” Austin breathed in either attraction or amazement, she wasn’t sure which. He cleared his throat and turned, putting a hand on his chest.
Marielle watched helplessly as they took Vincent’s wrists, hooked them to a chain, and strung him up like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. She was sure his brain must be spinning from the gash on his forehead, which was still bleeding.
Vincent’s head rolled back between his shoulders as he took in several deep breaths before letting them out through rounded lips. Then he breathed more quickly, puffing in and out for a moment. Eyes closed, he shut his mouth, and took in a deep pull through his nostrils, letting it out slowly before he opened his eyes again and looked straight ahead, obviously preparing for whatever was about to happen.
Moments later, he received the first bone-cracking blow to the side of his face from Erik’s powerful metal arms. Blood splattered onto the floor, the walls, even the other people in the small space.
Then came another harsh blow. Marielle knew that Vincent’s jaw was broken. His hair, which had mostly remained in place since she’d known him, was a wet mop. He was so still that for a moment Marielle was worried he was dead, but then she saw him breathing steadily and her pulse calmed a little.
Everyone in the room stepped back, watching Vincent dangle before he lifted his head and took another slow, deep breath. His face was mangled and contorted, blood dripping from his lips.
Liam turned to Wei Ling. “Heal him.”
Wei Ling did, touching the sides of his face and looking up into his eyes with mercy. Vincent’s chest rose high and fell low, but he did nothing else. There was a pause.
Liam gestured. “Again.”
The onslaught of punches started over.
“You don’t need to see this,” Austin whispered, trying to pull Marielle away from the window. She shook her head and pressed her forehead to the wall just opposite the glass, hearing the shattering of bone, the thudding and cracking. Every physical blow was like an emotional punch to the gut. She felt tears on her face.
“Come on, Marielle,” Austin gently urged again, his face imploring and his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned next to her. She shook her head, and he nodded. “I’m with you, then.” He reached over and took her hand, squeezing it. She squeezed back, her way of thanking him as words eluded her.
“Again,” she heard Liam say, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“They’re going to kill him,” she breathed, silent tears flowing like a waterfall.
“No,” Austin said, daring to reach over and wipe one of her tears away. “They’re healing him.”
“They’re going to break him.”
“I have a feeling”—he swallowed thickly and wiped away another tear—“that he doesn’t break. Not easily, anyway.” He looked down for a beat and rubbed his right arm under his shirt.
“I want to be in there,” she gasped.
“No, you don’t,” he murmured. She closed her eyes and wept silently. “Hey.” Austin pulled her close, holding her against him. “It’s okay, I’m here.”
Marielle hugged him back for a moment, then pulled away to watch the interrogation again. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Her watch said 12:47 in the afternoon, but she had no idea how many eternities had passed while they’d been standing there.
Vincent looked unaltered in every way, but there was a lot of blood on the floor and walls. Some of it had even splattered on the observation window. The only difference now was that he was no longer strung up but cuffed to a chair in the middle of the room with his hands bound behind his back, still receiving blows.
“I figured you’d have talked by now. After all, I am doing quite a bit of damage to that pretty face,” Erik jeered, standing back and pushing the metal knuckles of his right hand into his left palm. He was covered with sweat, and his neck muscles were big and tight; Marielle could see veins popping out of his red skin.
Vincent looked at him, his left eye purple and swollen shut. “Maybe you don’t know, mon ami… I am ex-military,” he said coolly, giving Erik a haughty smile. “I’m not even here anymore.”
Then the smile faded, and he said nothing else, once again retreating to the place in his mind where he felt no pain and feared nothing. Marielle longed to be there with him. It both mystified and terrified her. Austin was right: he wouldn’t break easily. They could be doing this for hours. Then a more horrific thought occurred to her. They could be doing this for days.
Vincent hadn’t looked over at her, but she wished he would. She wanted to mouth to him that it was going to be okay. She wanted to let him know she was there for him, and he wasn’t alone.
Presently, Austin was doing a better job of doing that for her than she could ever do for Vincent. He was seated on the floor with his shoulders pressed against the wall and his wrists over his bent knees. “Marielle?” He looked up at her with pleading blue eyes. “Come get some water with me?”
“He doesn’t have any water,” she muttered.
Austin stood. “Marielle, you’re torturing yourself with your own empathy here.” He shook his head. “I know how this goes, but you’re bleeding your emotions everywhere, and I don’t know how it’s going to affect you. You can’t do this to yourself.”
Another blow. She continued to watch. “He doesn’t eat or drink, I don’t eat or drink.”
Austin took in a deep breath, blinked once or twice as if processing her statement, then nodded. “Okay.” He brushed his hair behind his ears with both hands. “Okay, I’m with you.”
She turned to him, eyes narrowing. “What?”
“I’m with you,” he repeated. “We’re in this together. He doesn’t eat or drink, we don’t eat or drink.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“So you’ll wake up and understand what you’re doing to yourself… and to me.”
She hung onto that last bit for a moment, trying to understand his meaning. She’d only known Austin for about three days, but she already knew he wanted her to like him—and want him.
He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “And because I want to, okay? I care about you.”
In the interrogation room, Liam finally said, “Let him rest.”
Vincent sat as straight and tall as he could, and they ceased their torture.
Marielle checked her watch. 4:17. How had she been standing there that long? She exhaled slowly, feeling as though she’d held her breath during the entire ordeal.
“Water,” Liam said, snapping his fingers.
Wei Ling produced a water bottle, opened it, and poured it down Vincent’s throat, then let some splash over his naked torso, washing away the blood and sweat from the last several hours.
Marielle turned to Austin. “Go get us some water.” He walked away, and returned shortly with a bottle of water for each of them.
“Do you feel like talking?” Erik asked, raising his fist again. Vincent’s eyes were still closed, and he was breathing steadily. She knew he’d been trained to put himself into a trance that prevented him from being present. He didn’t respond. Erik looked up at Liam and shook his head.
“Okay, new tactic… Call in Hazal.”
At the very mention of her name, Marielle’s core went icy and her stomach churned. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “They can’t torture him in that way with anything except…” She turned to Austin, her eyes bloodshot and puffy.
A look of dark acceptance spread over Austin’s face. “Except his wife,” he finished for her.